@Snorri, try kanjidic maybe (lots of others, depending on how you wish to appreciate the art ..)
, don't believe there's a babelfish for this and if there is it's likely as subtly wrong as it is for everything else

Renee Katz wrote:

Heh, he looks so proud of his yin yang painting.

and well he should, the work is an original and not merely an imp of Johannes

The characters are Chinese characters. I don't know if they're used in the Japanese language for other meanings, but they're definitely in the Chinese language. The two characters in the first panel, zi4 ran2, mean "nature", or "natural". The character on the tea kettle, cha2, means (surprise!) "tea".